Thousand Tongue Mage

Ten abominations circled Eria slowly in the pit below, and they were all D-Rank Mutant-Classes at the very least. Some, C-Rank. One of them was B-Rank. Even Zora would be hard-pressed to act with sound judgement with ten of them surrounding him.

Then, one of them moved.

The Mutant-Class mantis had four legs and two arms shaped like reaping blades. Its acceleration was abrupt as it dashed towards Eria, the air cracking around it, so Zora instinctively drew breath to speak.

But before he could even cast the beginnings of a spell—

Eria moved. One second she was fidgeting awkwardly in the centre of the pit, not knowing what to do with her hands, and in the next, she'd dashed around the mantis with her fingers sharpened into claws that tore through her uniform's pristine gloves.

There was a wet, cracking sound.

The mantis's heart ripped free from its chest a nauseating squelch of sinew and shell, and Zora immediately smelled the warm gush of blood hit the fungal-lined ground. Eria didn't stop with ripping out its heart. As the mantis collapsed, lifeless, she ripped off both its scythe arms and stabbed them into her back, howling in pain as she did.

While she staggered and reeled from the pain, there were more footfalls around her. The rest of the Mutant-Classes moved in. Two Mutant-Class ants made the first move, spitting raw plumes of fire at her—fire ants, they were—but though the flash-ignition lit the air in an instant, Eria had already dashed around them again. Two stabs ripped out both their hearts, and two more grabs plucked off their wings.

Another series of punctures.

She was grafting them in. Zora heard the tissue warping as the wings fused to her back—an ugly process of viscera knitting to viscera—and soon, the wings began to vibrate.

The remaining Mutant-Classes screeched and adjusted their stance. Spiders and scorpions readied their claws and tails, and the wind cracked as Eria flapped her wings for a burst of directional speed, driving a claw through one of the spider's eye clusters before pivoting to slash off the tail of the scorpion with her mantis scythes.

And while Zora and Enki stood still as stone, watching and listening to the carnage below, Vantari hummed with satisfaction.

"About a decade ago," Vantari began, leaning against the railings as he smiled down at the pit, "I was overseeing an excavation in the northern end of the empire. We were looking for remnants of a rare ant strain we could carry out military research on, but instead of any ant strain, we found—buried just beneath a basin of scorched clay—a single black chitin plate, no larger than a human head."

Zora inclined his ear slightly, not looking at him. The tone Vantari used was not one of discovery, but sheer… worship.

"When we brought the piece of chitin back to our lab, we found no catalogued bug matched its composition," Vantari continued, eyes tracking Eria's every slash. "Not even close. We ran the usual elemental assays, dissected its weave, and analyzed the small glyph swirls of the bioarcanic essence on its surface. Soon, we realised it belonged to a bug with a very, very peculiar ability: when it was still alive, the bug must have been able to graft the parts of other bugs and use their biological properties for itself. It was a 'grafting bug', so to speak."

A loud grunt echoed from below. Eria had just driven a limb through another mutant's thorax, and Zora's jaw twitched. Enki, though silent, also shifted his weight slightly.

Vantari glanced at them with faint amusement. "Oh, yes. The chitin plate belonged to a bug that could potentially use the abilities and mutations of every bug in the world, so when we quickly reported our findings to the Divine Capital, the Divine Attendant became intrigued by our discovery. She requested full analysis for military viability. Naturally, I obliged."

Below, Eria tore another set of wings free from a twitching beetle's back. Zora heard her wince. The flesh stitching into hers was not clean nor painless, but still she did it like she'd done it many, many times before.

"Unfortunately for us, this bug has never been spotted alive before, so to this day, we still have no idea why there was a fragment of it in the northern end of the empire… but that detail was not relevant to us and our research," Vantari said, waving a hand absentmindedly. "We named it the 'Grafting Bug Project', and we spent years using all the resources we funnelled into this lab to figure out how we could weaponize the single piece of chitin we had. We mapped the essence locked in that single place. We cracked its lattice. We learned how to extract it and artificially propagate it, allowing us to reproduce even more chitin plates that we could then break down into vials of pure, volatile grafting bug essence."

And, as though to show the two of them exactly what he meant, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small glass vial. Zora couldn't tell what colour the thick, sloshing liquid inside was, but somehow, he felt like it was 'gold'.

Pure, radiant 'gold'.

"Once we managed to isolate the essence and condensed it into liquid form, we began trials," Vantari said, putting the vial back into his coat. "Injections. Implants. Bone re-sequencing with gel-like essence. We operate on at least five thousand experimental subjects every month, each with varying physicality and mental malleability, and we turn them into Grafting Bug Afflicted." Then he paused as Eria cleaved through a horned beetle below, and he turned to face Zora and Enki. "Do the two of you know why we use systems in the first place?"

"... Because when a normal human consumes bug meat," Zora began, "they will take in raw bioarcanic essence—a volatile source of energy meant for creatures not born of humankind. Sure, the human would become stronger and obtain bug mutations corresponding to the bug they consumed, but in return, the essence they consumed would gradually corrode their minds and stain their humanity. They would become an 'Afflicted', which is why systems are necessary. Systems act as regulators for the essence within an Afflicted, allowing them to carefully unlock new mutations and strengthen their physiology through 'points' without risk of losing their humanity."

Vantari grinned. "Spoken like a true educator of Amadeus Academy. I have heard rumours that your academy houses many Afflicted children. I am not surprised you know all about them."

Zora said nothing.

"But let us speak of limits," Vantari continued smoothly. "Let us presume a soldier is granted an Advanced Army Ant Class. Because he is using a system, he can only unlock mutations that have been predetermined 'safe' by the system. Thus, his T1 mutation will always be 'Pheromone Trail', and his T2 mutations will always be 'Basic Digestion' and 'Basic Repository'. He may get to choose his specialization during the Specialized Class Mutation Selection, and he may get to decide his branch mutations, but once he finishes his mutation tree—and let us say he is around A-Rank Mutant-Class at that point—he will have exactly fifteen mutations in total. Fifteen biological abilities. Now, do you know how many mutations the average A-Rank Mutant-Class army ant has?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"More than that?"

"The average A-Rank Mutant-Class army ant has over thirty distinct biological abilities at its disposal. Rank to rank, essence to essence, the Mutant-Class ant is stronger than the soldier," Vantari said, shaking his head in dismay. "That is the downside of using a system. One trades chaos for safety, but in doing so, one also trades potential power for safety. Now, consider how much the Swarm outnumbers us—no half-brained military 'strategist' would think we are actually on the winning end of this war."

Then he gestured down at Eria dueling the final Mutant-Class with six pairs of vibrating silk mesh wings, overlapping carapaces where her skin should be, and seven extra bug arms jutting out of her back, none of them looking like they should belong on the same body.

She didn't even look recognizable as a human anymore.

"... My Specialized Grafting Bug Soldiers do not have systems," Vantari said proudly. "All of our experimental subjects were injected with raw grafting bug essence, and obviously, most of them lost their minds or melted down within days, but since we had so many people to work with, it should not be entirely surprising for you to learn we currently have four Specialized Grafting Bug Soldiers who can endure the essence without a system to act as a regulator. Eria is the most stable of them."

Zora curled his fingers loosely against his palm. "You mean to say she can wield her strength—her mutations—without a limiter?"

"Exactly. Without a system, she can grow faster and stronger than those who have systems, and at the same time, her mutations allow her to graft bug parts onto her own body to use in different scenarios," Vantari explained. "If she is to face an army of fire ants, she can graft water bug glands onto her throat and neutralize the heat and the flames. If she is to face a horde of invisible stick bugs, she can graft dragonfly lenses onto her eyes to see through the camouflage. My Specialized Grafting Bug Soldiers are evolution and adaptability incarnate. They are artificial 'Walking Legends' with incredible versatility, just like the two of you."

Blood splattered across stone as the final Mutant-Class dropped with a heavy thud, and then Eria's breaths shifted from short, ragged, and wheezing to… frantic.

Zora pursed his lips. Her hands teared at herself. She ripped off her extra tendons. Peeled excess muscles from her carapace. One, two, three grafted limbs were pulled free, and she winced and hissed with every bug part she removed from her body.

And then came a heavier sound: the sound of her collapsing onto one knee, wet and slow, as if her body no longer understood its shape.

Footsteps followed. Rubber soles on metal grates. Half a dozen researchers rushed in without ceremony, and while they put her on a stretcher before ferrying her out one of the gates by the walls of the pit, Vantari only sighed.

"... Eria is the strongest Grafting Bug Soldier I have right now, but she is not perfect," he admitted. "Even she is not completely immune to the raw essence within her blood. We are delaying her eroding humanity by letting her live a relatively normal life as a student up in the academy. I hear Amadeus Academy does something similar—you let your Afflicted children live like normal students so they do not forget their human instincts—but unfortunately, even with all of our efforts, she will not live for another year. We will have to put her down before she loses her humanity completely and turns into a flesh-hungry monster."

Silence pressed against the air like a held breath.

Zora stood still, listening to the scrape of blood-soaked boots below, the faint hum of machinery in the walls, and the distant shuffle of Eria being dragged away. Neither he nor Enki spoke.

Then, softly, Zora asked, "Why tell us this?"

Vantari tilted his head.

"You called us down here the night before the award ceremony," Zora continued, "knowing full well Enki will ask for a private audience with 'Vantari' as his reward for winning the tournament. Knowing what we came here to do, what did you even call us down here for?"

Vantari blinked. Then he smiled—too easily.

"Because I admire the two of you, of course," he said, and Zora flinched, because there was no lie—no hesitation at all—in those words. "I mean, you are Walking Legends. The true patriots of humanity, unlike the Empress and Her Four Families. Fools, the lot of them, trying to kill you. We should all be working together to defeat the Swarm."

Zora furrowed his brows. Enki, surprisingly, had the same reaction.

"Now, you are correct. I was not planning to reach out to you," Vantari said. "Truth be told, I feared you might strike me down the moment we met, given the two of you must have been sent by the Salaqa Lord to expose the 'mysterious research' I have been conducting down here, but now… if I were to let tomorrow come, and the Worm Mage requests a meeting with me in front of the entire Ayapacha Assembly, I will be honour-bound to accept your request. I cannot afford to have this lab and my research be exposed just yet."

Then he looked up at them, voice quieting.

"My research is not complete, but the 'Divine Attendant' does not yet know our research is progressing faster than we have been reporting to her. If the two of you were to expose me tomorrow, she would realize I am fully intent on unleashing the Grafting Bug Soldiers on her before she can take control of them, and that would be the worst case scenario." Vantari looked at the two of them sternly now, desperate now. "So, I called the two of you down here tonight to ask for two things: understanding and cooperation."

Neither one of them responded immediately, so Vantari didn't let his words hang in the dark.

"I have given you a demonstration. You have now seen what even a single Grafting Bug Soldier is capable of," he said. "Surely, you understand now that they are humanity's only viable path forward. They are the only way we can end this war against the Swarm, so let me finish my research. Walk away from your mission for the Salaqa Lord. Do what you do best as Walking Legends and annihilate the Swarm with your heads held high, not… uncovering hidden labs and spreading civil chaos across an empire that is barely holding on by a thread."

And now Vantari stood with his hands laced behind his back, fingers fidgeting slightly.

It was evident the man was nervous. Not twitchy, not frantic, but 'alert' in a way most empire men would be in front of two Walking Legends. His gaze flicked from Zora to Enki, trying to read the silence between them, trying to see if he'd convinced them… but the silence dragged really, really long this time.

Strangely enough, it was Enki who spoke this time.

"Then, what do you want me to ask for tomorrow at the ceremony?" he said.

Vantari exhaled. His grin returned, looser this time as it curled with a mix of relief and triumph.

"Just ask for something any student would want," he said casually. "A high-ranking position in one of the Forward Armies, or maybe something more prestigious, befitting your performance in the tournament. Riches. Land. Titles. Whatever reward would make sense for a transfer student from the outer regions."

No more replies came from either of them, so—believing he now had Enki in his pocket—he clapped his hands once and made the sound echo through the chamber.

"There is no need for you to answer me here," he said. "Big decisions take time, so sleep on it. Tomorrow morning, I will know what you have decided based on the reward you ask for." Then he bowed sharply, formally. "Good night, Thousand Tongue. Good night, Worm Mage. You are both true patriots of humanity as I am, so I am sure you will make the right decision."

Then, above them, machinery groaned. A square of the metal ceiling retracted with a hiss, revealing a long elevator shaft that extended straight up towards the surface.

The floor beneath them shifted.

Zora stiffened slightly as the platform beneath their feet began to rise. He hadn't even realized they'd been standing on an elevator this entire time, but neither he nor Enki made an effort to get off it as the elevator surged upwards, accelerating fast enough to press the air out of his lungs.

The heat and stink of the lab dropped away beneath them, vanishing into shadow, and up, up, and up they went—until the elevator jerked to a halt, and cool night air kissed Zora's cheeks again.

The scent of trimmed grass and marble drifted in.

They were back in the centre of the pavilion where Eria had first shown them the shaft to the underground lab.